Gaming Chair

AUTHOR : Berleburg
PUBLISHED : 2019-08-23 10:49

Cougar Armor S Royal Gaming Chair

We’ve reviewed quite a number of chairs from Cougar, but we still have a ways to go before being through their entire line-up. So, in today’s test we take a look at yet another one of theirs and it’s the Armor S Royal, which offers a unique design, contrasting that of the normal Armor S chair, as well as a good range of adjustability.

Specifications and Features

I have grabbed the specifications and feature list directly from Cougar’s website and listed them below. I’ve included the promotional material that gives a good overview of the possibilities of the Armor S Royal:

Model: Armor S Royal

Size: Medium

Diamond Check Pattern Design: Yes

Surface: Breathable PVC Leather

5-Star Base Material: Steel

Armrest Directions: 4D

Weight Limit: 120 kg

Product Weight: 21 kg

Pillows: Head and Lumbar Pillow

Dimensions: Refer to the image below

Unboxing and Assembly

With the technical details out of the way, it is now time to unpack the goodies and assemble the thing. As is also the case with any other gaming chair, the Armor S Royal comes in a large and heavy box that weighs more than 20 kg.

Upon opening it up, we find a bunch of separate parts, all of which are neatly secured in plastic bags with foam or bubble wrap surrounding them, protecting the parts during transportation. Let’s get everything out of the box so that we can get an overview of what is actually included.

Below, all of the content has been unboxed, and it’s now ready to be assembled.. At first glance, the quality of the Armor S Royal feels really good with an anonymous design in black, with gilded stitchings and Cougar logo. It’s nice that there our no gaudy colors or other elements at play that scream of “gaming chair”. Well, aside from the actual shape and design of the chair, of course, but that is more or less the rule rather than the exception with these types of chairs nowadays.

A detailed assembly instruction is of course included, which makes it a whole lot easier assembling the chair. If you’ve assembled a gaming chair before, this is not that difficult. Most chairs are put together in the same way, and the Armor S Royal is no different. As such, I’m not going to go into too much detail regarding the actual assembling. Apart from one thing, it’s business as usual.

Usually, when assembling a gaming chair, you need to install the armrests yourself, but that is not the case with the Armor S Royal. Cougar has been kind enough to attach these from the factory, which makes everything even more easy. If you want to see a walkthrough of how a similar gaming chair is assembled, you can check out our test of the normal Cougar Armor S (Danish). Here, we go over the entire assembly and you can simply skip the part where we install the armrests. With that said, let’s have a look at the assembled Armor S Royal.

At Look at the Cougar Armor S Royal Gaming Chair

If you have already read our review of the regular Armor S chair, the design of the Armor S Royal holds no surprises. The design is more or less identical between the two, apart from the Royal sporting a more subtle design with no gaudy colors and such. There’s also more attention to detail when it comes to the Armor S Royal, when compared to the regular version. Below, we see the fully assembled chair, without the included pillows attached. The black and gold colors match well, and they give it a cool look, in my opinion.

With the pillows attached, the stylish look is compromised a bit, but the Armor S Royal still looks good. Attaching the head and lumbar pillows is done in a similar fashion as on any other gaming chair, with some elastic band and plastic clips. Let’s go into more detail and check out what changes Cougar has made to make this chair more comfortable to use.

Let’s start from the top with the head pillow. When I tested the TITAN chair from Secretlab, I applauded the included pillow for its softness and comfort. Well, it’s the same with the Armor S Royal. It’s made from the same soft and nice material, which is really nice to touch. The pillow isn’t as big, but it still has a fine size, and the surface texture alone sets it apart from the common imitated leather pillows that you get with most chairs, including the regular Armor S.

Cougar puts a lot of effort into promoting their diamond check pattern design and breathable PVC leather. Essentially, we’re dealing with imitated leather, which is relatively cheap to produce, and gives the chair that classic gamer look. Still, Cougar deserves applause for the color combination with black and gold that they’ve decided on. I find it to be looking very good.

Down along the sides of the back support, we find an suede-like material that provides a contrast to the overall PVC leather design. It gives the Armor S Royal a nice and more exclusive look than if it had all been done in in one single material. Cougar also specifies that we are dealing with a “deluxe gaming chair”, so there’s bound to be some attention to detail, here, in order for it to stand out from the crowd.

On the right side, under the armrest, we find two handles that allow the user to adjust a couple of things on the Armor S Royal chair. The lower handle is for adjusting the height of the chair, as well as locking/unlocking the tilting function. The upper handle is for adjusting the angle of the back support, allowing for a flat position allowing the user to either lie down, lie back and to sit upright, depending on the situation. As with any other gaming chair, the back support is spring powered, which means that it will rise to an upright position by itself, when the handle is pulled.

Cougar has also equipped the Armor S Royal with what is commonly called 4D armrests. In common tongue that basically means that the armrests can be adjusted in four ways, in order to provide the user the best possible adjustment options. There’s a button on the outside of both armrests, as well as one on the inside and on the very end. These allow the user to move the armrests up and down, back and forth, sideways, and finally, to tilt them at an angle. In other words, you can adjust the armrests completely to your pleasing in order to achieve the best possible level of comfort when sitting on the Armor S Royal.

Using the Chair - Comfort and Adjustability

We’ve now taken at look at the appearance of the Armor S Royal chair, and it’s now time to see how it actually performs when used. Since I earlier this year tried out the regular Armor S chair, I feel pretty prepared in terms of what to expect. I still use the TITAN chair from Secretlab, which ever since my review of it has been a part of my home office. To those of you that are not entirely sure what chair I’m talking about, here’s a link to my review (Danish). Unlike pretty much all other chairs on the market, my TITAN chair features a fabric texture thus making it easier for your body to breath. So, I now venture back to the realm of imitated leather, which in itself is an interesting change. The test, in all of its simplicity, will be performed by using the Armor S Royal at my home office over the course of a couple of weeks, with my TITAN chair put aside in the meantime. Allow me to provide some comments on the included pillows that come with the chair.

As mentioned earlier, the Armor S Royal makes use of a similar material as the TITAN chair on the included pillows. This means that the head pillow is very soft and has a good size and shape. It feels great to lean back in the chair and rest your head upon the texture of the pillow. Clearly an improvement compared to the pillow that comes with the regular Armor S chair, which features PVC leather. In regard to the lumbar pillow, this continues to be the bane of my existence, despite it having been granted the same luxurious fabric surface as the head pillow. I’ve never really been a fan of these types of pillows as they are often way too big, and at the same time do not offer any proper and meaningful support. The fittings with the long elastic straps is also not all that elegantly executed, and do nothing to improve the overall design and comfort either. Therefore, the lumbar pillows remains in the box, whilst I start using the Armor S Royal chair.

Similar to the regular Armor S chair, the Royal version is significantly smaller when compared to the TITAN chair, which is quite wider and larger in every way. Both the back support and the seat itself are quite a bit smaller, which doesn’t matter much if you’re a smaller person or a child. However, with my 188 cm in height, and rather wide shoulders, I do not quite fall into this category. Since the physical dimensions of the regular Armor S chair and the Royal version are identical, I had the exact same experience when using the chair. As such, I’ll permit myself to include what I wrote previously in my test of the regular Armor S: This meant that I wasn’t really able to lean correctly back into the chair due to the curved shape at the top. This essentially led to my shoulders not being able to fit within the shape of the back support, which further led to a poor posture. The same applies to the seat, as I tend to favor spreading my legs a bit, or even with one leg on the chair. This wasn’t possible in any comfortable way with the Armor S Royal chair, unfortunately. At least not for persons of my physical size. If you’re not so tall, or have a more narrow frame, you shouldn’t have any trouble of this sort with the chair. This was a bit deja-vu, and a repetition of what I said in my Armor S chair review, but what about the armrests and the rest of the Armor S Royal?

The two chairs use the same type of armrests, which is a good thing in my book since they were also good on the regular version of the chair. They can be set just to one’s liking so that the chair adjusts to your needs and not the other way around. Just how it should be. The height and tilt functions work as intended, and they make it possible to lean back when watching a movie, and straight up when a more focused posture is needed. The cushions on the back support and the seat are slightly softer than those of my TITAN chair, which I also mentioned in my Armor S review. Whether this is good or not is a subjective matter. As such, I won’t let that influence the final score of this review.

One of the more noteworthy caveats with the regular Armor S chair was its wheels. These were simply not that good and performed poorly on both hard and soft surfaces. However, I’m pleased to report that the wheels on the Royal version are significantly better and perform just as they should. It’s like night and day, really. It’s great to see a manufacturer acknowledging that there might have been a flaw, and fixing it. Way to go, Cougar! Compared to the regular Armor S chair, the Royal version takes things to a whole new level. Many of the offerings are the same, which is only to be expected. But the design, the included pillows and not least the wheels have seen huge upgrades compared to the regular version. The Armor S Royal still isn’t for the tall or large framed persons, but for the average sized person or children, there’s definitely something to be satisfied with here. With that said, let’s move on to the price and conclusion.

Price

At the time of this writing, the Armor S Royal is priced at $327.99, shipping excluded. Compared to other gaming chairs on the market that feature the same range of features this is actually a rather decent price. In fact, the Royal chair is priced the same as the original Armor S back when we tested it at the start of the year - and I have no doubt in my mind which chair I’d opt for. It has a nice range of features, and at this pricing you can’t ask for much more than what the Armor S Royal provides. Still, I’m a bit too large/tall to be able to sit properly in this chair, which is something you need to keep in mind if you’re 185 cm tall.

If you want all the details on the Armor S Royal chair, and want to check out a comparison of it and the other models that Cougar offer then click here in order to reach their website.

Conclusion

We’ve arrived at the end, and it’s time to gather my thoughts on the Armor S Royal chair from Cougar. I had a bit of a deja-vu experience with this review since I also checked out the regular Armor S chair earlier this year, which I had some mixed feelings about, I might add. Many of the features are repeated with the Royal model, which in most cases is a good thing. On top, it’s great to see how Cougar has addressed some of the issues reported with the Armor S chair.

First and foremost, the assembly process has been made easier, since the armrests come pre-installed. This means you’ll be up and running within 15-20 minutes with the included tools. The overall build quality is also quite decent and there’s not much to comment on here. Cougar has cared for the details with the Royal version and kept the colors at a minimum with black and gold, and combined it with some suede-like fabric along the sides of the chair. This gives the chair a cool look, and makes it feel a bit more expensive and luxurious than it really is.

The accompanying pillows have also seen an upgrade compared to the original. They are made from a nice soft material instead of improvised leather. Much softer and more comfortable and nice to touch. The armrests of the Royal version are identical to those found on the regular version, and they still offer what Cougar calls 4D adjustment. This essentially means that they can be adjusted exactly to your personal liking and not the other way around.

I only had one real issue with the Armor S Royal, and it was the same with the previous regular version. It’s the size and shape of the back support, which made it difficult for me to lean back in a proper way, since I’m simply too wide across the shoulders. At the same time, I could only sit with my legs gathered due to the narrow seat and the raised wings on each side. Now, I’m also quite a tall person with my 188 cm, and larger frame. As such, I’m sure that more averagely sized persons will be able to enjoy the Armor S Royal to a much larger degree and without encountering any of the problems I did. The wheels on the original Armor S were the cause of a lot of frustration on my part, and it’s a huge win that they have been improved on the Royal version.

With the Royal version of the Armor S, Cougar has managed to address many of my annoyances with the original. The price is maintained on a similar level, which kind of makes it a no-brainer when picking between the two. The Armor S Royal gets a fine score of 9 out of 10 as well as our Safe Buy Award. Here, you get a reasonably priced chair with lots of adjustment options, fine quality and a design that is not too elaborate and distracting. However, do keep your physical size in mind since the Armor S Royal is not well suited for taller persons or persons that work out a lot - but who am I kidding? What kind of nerd does that in the first place?